Return to homeDacia was an ancient kingdom and later a Roman
province in southern Europe between the Carpathian Mountains and the
Danube corresponding generally to modern Rumania and adjacent
regions.
(WUD, 1994, p.363) 104Mil BC In
1914 Romanian Baron Franz Nopcsa (1877-1933) found fossils of small
dinosaurs in Romania that dated to about this time in the Cretaceous
period.
(SFC, 6/8/06, p.A7)

80Mil BC-70Mil BC A dinosaur the size of a
gigantic turkey lived in Europe during the late Cretaceous. In 2010
Romanian fossil hunters unearthed the remains of the velociraptor
and named it Balaur Bondoc (stocky dragon). Europe at this time was
an archipelago of islands.
(SFC, 8/31/10, p.A4)

36-34k BCE In 2002 the jawbone of a cave-man
living in what is now Romania was found in Pestera cu Oase. It was
reported as the oldest fossil from an early modern human to be found
in Europe and was carbon-dated to this time.
(AP, 9/22/03)

650 BC The Transylvanian Dacians are first known
from their contacts with the Greeks about this time.
(WSJ, 6/18/97, p.A20)

103-105AD Apolodorus of Damascus built a bridge
over the Danube for Emperor Trajan. It connected the Roman provinces
of Moesia Superior and Dacia (the Yugoslavian and Romanian banks
respectively).
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.26)

105AD Flavius Cerialis, prefect
of Cohort IX of Batavians at Vindolanda in northern England, was
transferred to the Danube to join Trajan’s forces gathering for the
Second Dacian War.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.17)

700-800 Invading Slavs assimilated the Thracians
in the area of modern Bulgaria and parts of Greece, Romania,
Macedonia and Turkey.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.A2)

1200-1300 The Csango people of Romania's remote
eastern Carpathian mountains began settling around this time,
dispatched by Hungarian rulers to defend the kingdom's easternmost
frontier.
(AP, 3/21/12)

1300-1400 The Sihastra Monastery was founded in
the 14th century.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A25)

1431-1476 In Romania Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the
Impaler, the son of Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Dragon), was a 15th
century gruesome Wallachian nobleman. Dracula means son of the
dragon. He punished disobedient subjects and “unchaste” women by
impaling them on sharpened logs, often dining amid the victims as
they died. The family name changed to Kretzulesco and grew in
stature with members upgraded to princes and princesses.
(WSJ, 10/30/97,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler)

1437 Sep 18, Farmers revolted
in Transylvania.
(MC, 9/18/01)

1459 Vlad Tepes used Turkish
prisoners to haul stones brick and mortar for his Poienari Citadel
in Romania’s Transylvania region. Much of it fell down the mountain
during a landslide in 1888.
(SSFC, 10/23/11, p.H6)

1691 In northwest Romania an
icon was painted at a monastery in Nicula. According to legend, the
icon of the Weeping Virgin, wept for 26 days in 1699. The first
recorded miracle occurred in 1701 when it is said to have cured an
army officer's wife who was going blind. The church attached to the
monastery is named after St. Mary and pilgrimages there are made
every year on Aug. 15, Mary's name day. In 1977, the church burned
down, but the icon was unharmed. In 2005 low water level revealed
its skeleton.
(AP, 8/15/05)

1723 Dimitrie Cantemir
(b.1673), 2-time Prince of Moldavia (1693 & 1710-1711), died
near Kharkov, Ukraine. He was born in what is now Romania and became
a prolific man of letters with talents as a philosopher, historian,
composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer.
Between 1687 and 1710 he lived in forced exile in Istanbul, where he
learned Turkish and studied the history of the Ottoman Empire at the
Patriarchate's Greek Academy, where he also composed music.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitrie_Cantemir)(Econ, 9/15/07,
p.104)

1812 Russia acquired
Bessarabia, the north eastern part of the original principality of
Moldavia, in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812).
(Econ, 1/6/07,
p.43)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessarabia)

1840-1860 Slavery existed on the territory of
present-day Romania from before the founding of the principalities
of Wallachia and Moldavia in 13th–14th century, until it was
abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the slaves
were of Roma (Gypsy) ethnicity.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Romania)

1853 Jul, Supported by Britain,
the Turks took a firm stand against the Russians, who occupied the
Danubian principalities (modern Romania) on the Russo-Turkish
border. The Crimean War got under way in October. It was fought
mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the
British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, with support, from January
1855, by the army of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war aligned Anglican
England and Roman Catholic France with Islam’s sultan-caliphs
against the tsars, who saw themselves as the world’s last truly
Christian emperors.
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143040/Crimean-War)(Econ,
10/2/10, p.89)

1856 Mar 30, Russia signed the
Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War. It guaranteed the integrity
of Ottoman Turkey and obliged Russia to surrender southern
Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Danube. The Black Sea was
neutralized, and the Danube River was opened to the shipping of all
nations. In 2010 Allen Lane authored “Crimea: The Last Crusade.”
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143040/Crimean-War)

1856 Feb 20, Romania abolished
the slavery of Gypsies, or Roma, but discrimination persisted
against the group.
(AP, 3/11/11)

1876 Feb 21, Constantin
Brancusi (d.1957), Romanian-French sculptor (Princesse X), was born
in Hobitza, Romania. he made it to Paris in 1902. His works include
“The Kiss” (1908) and the “Sleeping Muse” (1910).
(WSJ, 10/19/95, A-18)(WSJ, 11/30/01, p.W12)(MC,
2/21/02)

1878 Mar 3, Russia and the
Ottomans signed the Treaty of San Stefano, granting independence to
Serbia. With the Treaty of San Stefano (and subsequent negotiations
in Berlin) in the wake of the last Russo-Turkish War, the Ottoman
Empire lost its possession of numerous territories including
Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia. The Russo-Turkish wars
dated to the 17th century, the Russians generally gaining territory
and influence over the declining Ottoman Empire. In the last war,
Russia and Serbia supported rebellions in the Balkans. In concluding
the Treaty of San Stefano, the Ottomans released control of
Montenegro, Romania and Serbia, granted autonomy to Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and allowed an autonomous state of Bulgaria to be
placed under Russian control.
(HN, 3/3/99)(HNQ, 2/23/01)

1887 Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum
(1887-1979) founder of the Satmar Hassids in Satu Mare, Romania, was
born. The ultra-orthodox sect of Judaism later established itself in
NYC.
(Econ, 4/29/06,
p.37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Teitelbaum)

1889 Jun 15, Mihai Eminescu,
born in 1850 as Mihail Eminovici, died in Bucharest. He was a
Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, and often regarded as the
most famous and influential Romanian poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihai_Eminescu)

1913 Jun 1, Serbia and Greece
concluded a secret treaty for joint action against Bulgaria; joined
by Romania. Dissatisfied with their share of the spoils, Serbia,
denied its proposed outlet to the Adriatic Sea, sought compensation
in Macedonia along the Vardar River which the Bulgarians rejected
while Greece asked for control of Thessaloniki and "a certain part"
of the eastern Macedonian territories, which Bulgaria rejected as
well.
(www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov61.html)

1913 Jul 10, Rumania entered
the Second Balkan War and four days later the Ottoman Empire joined
the general assault on Bulgaria. Faced with four fronts, Bulgarian
armies were defeated piecemeal and the government at Sofia was
forced to seek peace. Atrocities were widespread. For example, in
pursuing the Bulgarian army Greek forces systematically burnt to the
ground all Macedonian villages they encountered, mass-murdering
their entire populations. Likewise, when the Greek army entered
Kukush (Kilkis) and occupied surrounding villages, about 400 old
people and children were imprisoned and killed. Nor did the Serbian
"liberators" lag behind in destruction and wanton slaughter
throughout Macedonia. In Bitola, Skopje, Shtip and Gevgelija, the
Serbian army, police and chetniks (guerrillas) committed their own
atrocities.
(www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov61.html)

1913 Aug 10, The Treaty of
Bucharest ended the Second Balkan War. It was concluded by the
delegates of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. The
entire "disputed zone" was taken by Serbia, Greece secured its
position in Thessaloniki and southeastern Macedonia, the Ottomans
regained all the territories lost in the First Balkan War to
Bulgaria with the exception of eastern (Pirin) Macedonia, and the
Romanians seized Southern Dobruja.
(www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov61.html)

1918 The heir to Romania's
throne, Prince Carol, secretly married Zizi Lambrino, a Romanian
aristocrat. The marriage was later annulled because by law Romania's
heir to the throne was obliged to marry a foreign princess. Their
child, Mircea Grigore, was then regarded as an illegitimate son.
Mircea, filed a request in a Lisbon court in 1955, demanding to be
recognized as Carol's legitimate son. His request was granted.
(AP, 2/15/12)
1918 An attempt to establish a
Moldovan Soviet failed and Romanian troops occupied the province.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A18)

1920 Jun 4, The Treaty of
Trianon, signed at Versailles, was forced upon Hungary by the
victorious Allies after WWII and resulted in Hungary giving up
nearly three-fourths of its territory to Romania, Czechoslovakia and
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croat and Slovenes. Hungary lost more than
half its population, including some 3 million Hungarians. Hungary
ceded the hills of Transylvania to Romania.
(HNQ, 7/5/98)(WSJ, 1/2/97,
p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon)

1922 May 29, Iannis Xenakis,
Greek mathematician, architect and composer, was born in Romania. In
2004 James Harley authored “Xenakis: His Life in Music.”
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.M4)

1924 May 4, The summer Olympics
opened in Paris. The French rugby team beat the Rumanians 61-3.
{France, Olympics}
(Ind, 2/16/02,
6A)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Summer_Olympics)

1924 The Bolsheviks formed the
Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), aka
Transdniestria, as a basis for later taking over a chunk of Romania.
(WSJ, 7/8/97, p.A1,8)(http://tinyurl.com/b7m4b)

1925 Miron Cristea (1868-1939)
was enthroned as the first Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox
Church.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miron_Cristea)
1925 Brother Cleopa entered the
Sihastra Monastery at age 25.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A25)

1926 Queen Marie of Romania
spoke at the dedication ceremony of the unfinished Maryhill Museum
in Washington state. Sam Hill, railroad magnate, built a replica of
Stonehenge as a monument to Klickitat County soldiers who lost their
lives in the World War on the premises. His nearby mansion later
became the Maryhill Museum of Art.
(AM, 9/01, p.10)

1927 The Legion of the
Archangel Michael was formed and later became the Iron Guard. It was
committed to the “Christian and racial” renovation. The Fascist
organization fed on anti-Semitism and mystical nationalism and was a
major social and political force in Romania between 1930 and 1941.
It was finally destroyed when in 1941 when it staged a revolt
against the government of General Ion Antonescu.
(HNQ, 11/27/01)

1928 Sep 30, Elie Wiesel,
Holocaust survivor, writer (Souls on Fire), best known for his first
book “Night” about his own experiences in concentration camps, was
born in Romania. He won the Nobel Prize in 1986.
(HN, 9/30/98)(MC, 9/30/01)

1934 The wife of PM Gheorghe
Tatarascu asked Constantin Brancusi to commemorate the citizens of
Targu Jiu, who died trying to hold back the WW I Austro-German
invasion. Brancusi agreed and created sculptures titled: “Endless
Column,” “Gate of the Kiss” and “Table of Silence.” The 97-foot
Endless Column was taken down for restoration in 1996. A 2nd
restoration was completed in 2001.
(WSJ, 11/30/01, p.W12)

1935-1944 In 2000 the memoir of Mihail Sebastian,
a Jewish Romanian playwright, was published: “Journal, 1935-1944:
The Fascist Years.” Sebastian died soon after the war in a traffic
accident.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, Par p.19)

1938 Feb 11, In Romania Carol
II, who had banned political parties and established a royal
dictatorship, chose Miron Cristea (1868-1939) to be the Prime
Minister, a position from which he served for about a year.
Patriarch Miron Cristea, who led the Romanian Orthodox Church from
1925 to 1939, was responsible for revising the citizenship law,
stripping about 225,000 Jews, or 37% of the Jewish population, of
their Romanian citizenship.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miron_Cristea)(AP,
8/3/10)

1938 The documentary film “Tara
Motilor” by Paul Calinescu won the documentary section at the Venice
Film Festival.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.E2)

1938 In Romania Bran Castle,
owned by Queen Marie, was bequeathed to her daughter Princess
Ileana. In 1948 it was confiscated by the Communists. In 2006 the
fabled “Dracula’s Castle” was transferred to Dominic van Hapsburg, a
New York architect who inherited it from Princess Ileana.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.A2)

1939 Mar 6, Miron Cristea, PM
of Romania (1938-1939), died. Cristea was also the first Patriarch
of the Romanian Orthodox Church (1925-1939).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miron_Cristea)

1939 Aug 13, Saul Steinberg,
American artist (The Art of Living, New Yorker Magazine), was born
in Romania.
(MC, 8/13/02)

1940 Jun 26, The Soviet Union
delivered an ultimatum to Romania and 2 days later occupied
Bessarabia and North Bukovina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Bessarabia_by_the_Soviet_Union)

1940 Oct 8, German troops
occupied Romania.
(MC, 10/8/01)

1940 Nov 27, Astonescu's Iron
Guard massacred over sixty aides of the exiled king, including
Nicolae Iorga, a former minister and acclaimed historian. Two months
prior General Ion Antonescu seized power in Romania and forced King
Carol II to abdicate.
(MC, 11/27/01)

1940 King Carol II abdicated
for the 2nd time and Michael became king for a 2nd time.
(SFC, 10/20/00, p.A16)

1941 Jun, In the northeastern
city of Iasi, Romania, up to 12,000 people are believed to have died
as Romanian and German soldiers swept from house to house to killing
Jews. Those who did not die were systematically beaten, put in
cattle wagons in stifling heat and taken to a small town, where what
happened to them would be concealed. Of the 120 people on the train,
just 24 survived. In 2010 a mass grave was found containing the
bodies of an estimated 100 Jews killed by Romanian troops in a
forest near the town of Popricani, about 350 km northeast of
Bucharest. It contained the bodies of men, women and children who
were shot in 1941.
(AP, 6/14/03)(AP, 11/5/10)

1941 Jul, The 16,000 sq. mile
area of the Ukraine named Transnistria was granted by Hitler to the
Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu for Romania’s participation in the
war against the soviet Union. Jews from Bessarabia, Bukovina and
Moldova were transferred here and many thousands were murdered from
1941-1944 by the Romanian Gendarmeric, the Einsatrzgruppe D,
Ukrainian police and Sonderkommando R.
(WSJ, 7/30/97, p.A15)

1941 Oct 8, The Romanian
government gave the order to deport 11,000 Jews remaining in
Kishinev across the Dniester to Rybnitsa and into Nazi hands.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A18)

1941 Oct 22-23, Some 39,000
Jews were killed by Romanian troops over 2 days in Odessa. Many of
them were burned to death in a public square or in warehouses that
were locked shut. Some 90,000 Jews were killed in Odessa altogether.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)

1941 Dec, In Romania
authorities ordered the dissolution of all Jewish organizations.
Chief Rabbi Alexander Safran (1910-2006) helped set up the Jewish
Council, an underground organization comprising all sectors of the
Jewish population. The council used its links with Romanian church
officials, the Vatican and the royal family in a bid to prevent the
mass deportation of Romania's Jews to the Nazi extermination camps.
(AP, 7/28/06)

1941-1945 Some 148,000 Bessarabian Jews were
killed in Rybnitsa and other ghettos and concentration camps on the
East bank of the Dniester during the Nazi occupation.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A18)
1941-1945 In 2000 Radu Ioanid authored "The
Holocaust In Romania," which described how 250,000 people died under
Ion Antonescu. 25,000 Gypsies were deported to Transnistria (later
in the Ukraine), of whom 1,500 died.
(WSJ, 1/19/00, p.A20)

1942 Jun 12, American bombers
struck the oil refineries of Ploesti, Rumania for the first time.
(HN, 6/12/98)

1943 Aug 1, Over 177 B-24
Liberator bombers attacked the German oil fields in Ploesti,
Romania, for a second time. Of 1,762 airmen on the mission, 532 were
killed, captured, interned or listed as missing in action. In 2007
Duane Schultz authored “Into the Fire: Ploesti” The Most Fateful
Mission of World War II.
(HN, 8/1/98)(WSJ, 11/13/07, p.D5)

1943 Former King Michael I
purchased the Savarsin castle. It was later used as a hospital and
then a private residence for Ceausescu. A local court in 2000
awarded the castle back to Michael.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.C16)

1944 Jun 23, In one of the
largest air strikes of the war, the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force sent
761 bombers against the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.
(HN, 6/23/98)

1944 Aug 23, Romanian PM Ion
Antonescu was dismissed by King Michael, paving the way for Romania
to abandon the Axis in favor of the Allies. King Michael organized a
coup against the pro-Nazi dictator, Marshal Ion Antonescu, but was
double-crossed by Joseph Stalin and betrayed by the Allies who ceded
the country to the Russians at the Yalta summit in 1945.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A16)(AP, 8/23/97)

1944 The Soviet army
re-conquered Bessarabia. Only then were the two parts of present-day
Moldova joined together to form the Moldavian SSR. At the same time,
about one-third of Bessarabia, including its entire Black Sea
coastline, was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. The
Transdniester region, having long been part of the Russian Empire
and then the Soviet Union, remained more Russified and Sovietized
than Right-Bank Moldavia.
(http://tinyurl.com/b7m4b)

1946-1989 Romania under Communist rule
imprisoned some 617,000 political prisoners during this period. Some
120,000 died in the gulags.
(SFC, 7/12/13, p.A3)

1947 Dec 30, Rumania's King
Michael was exiled when the Soviet backed Communists took over. King
Michael of Romania agreed to abdicate, but charged he was being
forced off the throne by Communists.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A16)(AP, 12/30/97)(HN, 12/30/98)

1947 Chief Rabbi Alexander
Safran was dismissed from his post and forced to leave Romania,
making his home in Geneva. He had refused to cooperate with the new
Jewish Democratic Committee, saying it was a Communist body intent
on breaking up traditional Jewish organizations and bringing Jewish
life in Romania to a standstill.
(AP, 7/28/06)
1947 In Romania Ion Diaconescu
(1917-2011), an anti-communist activist, was arrested after
Communists came to power. He was released in 1964 under an amnesty
for political prisoners, and helped re-establish the center-right
Peasants' Party after communism ended in Romania in 1989.
(AP, 10/12/11)

1948 Jan 3, King Michael left
Romania. His Peles Castle in Sinaia was confiscated by the
Communists. In 2006 it was returned to the former king.
(SFC, 10/20/00, p.A16)(SFC, 5/24/06, p.A2)

1948-1951 Father Alexandru Todea escaped from
prison and went into hiding. During this time he was secretly made a
bishop.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)

1949 In Romania Ticu Dumitrescu
(1928-2000) was sentenced to 27 years prison for being an enemy of
the state. From 1949 to 1964, he was incarcerated in communist jails
or kept under house arrest.
(AP, 12/5/08)

c1950 Brother Cleopa under
pressure from the Communist party to stop receiving visitors, who
sought his guidance, left the Sihastra Monastery and became a hermit
in the mountain forests for 3 years. He ate 1 potato a day.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A25)

1954 May 17, In Romania
Monsignor Vladimir Ghika (b.1873) died in Jilava Communist prison.
He had been born into a family of Moldovan nobles in Constantinople
and spent decades traveling around the world helping the sick and
the poor. On Aug 31, 2013, he was beatified.
(AP, 8/31/13)(http://tinyurl.com/kcj67sc)

1954 A new bridge across the
Danube linked the cities of Ruse, Bulgaria, and Giurgiu, Romania.
(AP, 6/14/13)

1956-1963 In Romania 6 political prisoners died at
the Ramnicu Sarat prison, under the command of Alexandru Visinescu.
In 2014 Visinescu (87) denied genocide charges as he faced
prosecutors in a closed session.
(AP, 1/14/14)

1958-1963 In Romania Ion Ficior served as
commander of the Periprava labor camp during this period. In 2013
Ficior (85) was charged with genocide for his alleged role in the
deaths of 103 political prisoners.
(SFC, 10/25/13, p.A2)
1958-1964 In Romania Col. Gheorghe Craciun (d.2001) commanded the
Aiud Prison. He was later charged with the deaths of 216 prisoners
but died before the trial was completed.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A17)

1959 The first International
Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), a World Championship Mathematics
Competition for High School students, was held in Romania, with 7
countries participating. In 1978 Dr. George Lenchner (1917-2006
created the Mathematical Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools
(MOEMS, originally LIMOES).
(http://imo.math.ca/)(www.moems.org/memoriam.htm)

1963 Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
gave amnesties to political prisoners and Bishop Alexandru Todea was
released from prison.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)

1964 A number of political
prisoners, including Alexandru Salca (d.2001 at 78), were released
in a general amnesty. Salca served 7 years for opposing the
pro-Moscow government and another 8 for opposing the 1956 Soviet
invasion of Hungary. He later authored 4 books on the horrors of
Communist prisons and the Black Sea Canal forced labor camps where
tens of thousands perished.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A17)

1965 Mar 19, In Romania State
Council Pres. Gheorghiu-Dej (b.1901) died. Gheorghe Apostol was
defeated in a contest for Communist Party leader by Ceausescu, who
ended up ruling Romania with an iron fist for 25 years.
(AP, 8/25/10)(http://tinyurl.com/37bdv5x)

1965 Mar 24, Chivu Stoica
(1908-1975), former Romanian prime minister (1955-1961), became
President of the Council State of Romania.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivu_Stoica)

1967 Soviet Gen. Sakharovsky
became chief intelligence adviser in Romania. He helped bring Yasser
Arafat to the Soviet Union via Romania for training and
indoctrination. The soviets maneuvered to have Arafat named chairman
of the PLO with help from Egypt’s ruler, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Sakharovsky was later reported to be responsible for killing 50,000
Romanians.
(WSJ, 1/10/02, p.A12)

1969 Aug 2, Richard Nixon
visited Romania becoming the first president to visit a communist
nation since the start of the Cold War.
(HNQ,
11/20/01)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1464.html)

1972 The jellyfish population
in the Black Sea exploded following the completion of a dam in a
section of the Danube that runs between Serbia and Romania.
(WSJ, 11/27/07, p.A14)

1974 Mar 28, In Romania the
position of President of the Republic was created especially for
Nicolae Ceausescu, who is then named President for life by Grand
National Assembly.
(www.ceausescu.org/ceausescu_texts/ceausescu_chronology.htm)

1976 Nadia Comaneci of Romania
scored 7 perfect 10s in gymnastics during the Olympic games in
Montreal.
(NG, 8/04, Geographica)

1977 Mar 4, A 7.4 earthquake in
Romania killed about 1,570 people and was felt across southern and
eastern Europe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Bucharest_Earthquake)(AP,
3/4/98)(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A15)

1980 Ilie Verdet (d.2001 at 75)
was appointed prime minister and served for 2 years.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A20)

1980-1989 In Romania a huge building spree by
Nicolae Ceausescu leveled entire neighborhoods in Bucharest and left
a large number of stray dogs roaming the streets. Their number
reached 100-200,000 in 1997.
(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A20)

1985 Nov 17, Gheorghe Emil Ursu
(b.1926), Romanian construction engineer, poet, diarist and
dissident, died after being beaten for weeks by police. Security
police had raided his home and discovered his diary, in which he had
joted down scathing secret poems by Nina Cassian about Nicolae
Ceausescu self-importance and stupidity.
(Econ, 5/17/14,
p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gheorghe_Ursu)

1986 The church bishops
secretly elected Bishop Alexandru Todea leader of the church with
the rank of Metropolitan.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)

1986 Ion Cioaba, Gypsy leader,
was jailed and tortured on alleged charges of cheating the
government on a copper contract.
(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A24)

1989 Nov 24, Romanian leader
Nicolae Ceausescu was unanimously re-elected Communist Party chief.
Within a month, he was overthrown in a popular uprising and executed
along with his wife, Elena, on Christmas Day.
(AP, 11/24/04)

1989 Dec 15, A popular uprising
that resulted in the downfall of Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu began
as demonstrators gathered in Timisoara to prevent the arrest of the
Reverend Laszlo Tokes, a dissident clergyman.
(AP, 12/15/99)

1989 Dec 16, In Romania a
revolt began in Timisoara when authorities tried to forcibly move
ethnic Hungarian pastor Laszlo Toekes to a remote rural parish.
Supporters gathered outside his house and soon the site was teeming
with protesters. 6 days of fighting left 118 people killed.
(AP, 12/16/09)

1989 Dec 21, Romanian President
Nicolae Ceausescu delivered what turned out to be his final public
speech. The hard-line Communist ruler was visibly stunned as his
listeners began booing. Ceausescu fled from power and was executed
four days later.
(AP, 12/21/99)

1989 Dec 22, In Romania there
was a revolt and miners riots. Romania's hard-line Communist ruler,
Nicolae Ceausescu, was toppled in a popular uprising following 23
years of dictatorial rule. Ion Ileascu and other top Communist
functionaries of Ceausescu seized control. Ileascu ruled until Nov
1996.
(SFC, 11/18/96, p.A10)(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C4)(AP,
12/22/97)(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)

1989 Dec 23, Ousted Romanian
President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were captured as
they were attempting to flee their country.
(AP, 12/23/99)

1989 Dec 25, Ousted Romanian
President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed
following a popular uprising. His regime had mobilized some 700,000
informants to keep tabs on the population of 23 million people.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.B1)(AP, 12/25/97)(SSFC,
8/20/06, p.A20)

1989 Dec 26, Romanian
television broadcast videotape of ousted President Nicolae Ceausescu
and his wife, Elena, at their secret trial and footage of
Ceausescu's body after his execution. That same day, a provisional
government took control of Romania.
(AP, 12/26/99)

1989 Some 1,200 deaths occurred
during the revolution after the army officially changed sides.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)

1989 Orthodox Patriarch
Teoctist resigned after the fall of Ceausescu. He was accused of
collaborating with the Ceausescu regime. Church leaders pressed him
to return 3 months later.
(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A10)

1989 The church was recognized
by the state following the collapse of communism.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)

1989 The village of Copsa Mica
was exposed as one of the most polluted places in Europe. Despite
cleanup efforts heavy contamination persisted in 2002.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.A1)

1990 Jan 8, Military tribunals
in Romania began trials of the country's dreaded security forces who
stood accused of resisting the revolution that toppled Nicolae
Ceausescu.
(AP, 1/8/00)

1990 Jan 27, In Romania, four
top associates of executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu went on trial,
charged with abetting genocide.
(AP, 1/27/00)

1990 Mar 5, To the cheers of
onlookers, workers in Bucharest, Romania, finally succeeded in
removing a 25-foot, seven-ton bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin from
its foundation.
(AP, 3/5/00)

1990 Mar, Several people were
killed and hundreds injured in clashes between Romanians and ethnic
Hungarians in the Transylvanian city of Targu Mures. The Szeklers
make up about a third of Romania's 1.4 million Hungarian minority.
(AP, 10/8/06)

1990 May 20, Romania's ruling
National Salvation Front scored victories in the country's first
free elections in more than 50 years.
(AP, 5/20/00)

1990 Jun, Miners, transported
into Bucharest in government vehicles, destroyed hundreds of
Interior Ministry files. Over 2 years well organized mobs of rural
coal miners descended on Bucharest 4 times to knock the heads of
student leaders, opposition politicians and others.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)

1990 Sep, Transdniestria
declared its independence over fears that Moldova planned to reunite
with Romania. It was not recognized internationally.
(www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1803/Meier_Foster/Meier_Foster.html)(AP,
1/5/12)

1990 Dec 25, Romania’s former
monarch, King Michael, arrived on his first visit to his homeland
since Communist rulers forced him to abdicate four decades earlier.
He was deported by the new Bucharest government less than 12 hours
later.
(AP, 12/25/00)

1992 Sep, Ion Cioaba
(1935-1997), had himself crowned as King of the Gypsies with a
13-pound crown in front of 5,000 followers.
(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A24)

1992 Andrei Ivantoc, a member
of the Popular Moldovan Front, was arrested by separatist
authorities of Trans-Dniester. A year later he and the three
others were sentenced on charges of committing terrorist acts
against citizens of Trans-Dniester. The Popular Moldovan Front
called for the reunification of Moldova with neighboring Romania.
The group's members were seen as martyrs by some in Moldova and
Romania for their opposition to the separatists. Ivantoc was
released in 2007.
(AP, 6/2/07)

1995 The capital is Bucharest.
National Day is Dec 1. The average monthly wage is $150. Premier
Nicolae Vacaroiu says the government is prepared to adopt new taxes
to reduce imports and help support the national currency.
(WSJ, 11/6/95, p.B-8F)

1996 The government rejected
the Dec. 24, '95 results of an election in the Dnestr region of
neighboring Moldava, a former Soviet state. The region voted for
independence and closer ties to Russia.
(WSJ, 1/4/96, p.A-1)

1996 May, Ilie Alexandru, aka
the J.R. of Romania, opened his copy of the Southfork Ranch of the
TV “Dallas” series in Slobozia as part of his Hermes Vacation park.
(SFC, 6/16/96, Zone 1 p.5)

1996 Jun 2, Victor Ciorbia of
the Democratic Convention won over Ilie Nastase, int’l tennis star
representing the Party of social Democracy, in preliminary elections
for the mayorship of Bucharest.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A14)

1996 Sep 16, Romania and
Hungary signed a treaty over the status of 1.6 million Hungarians in
Romania and a guarantee of borders.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A12)

1996 Nov 3, The opposition
party won parliamentary elections ending control by ex-Communists.
(WSJ, 11/4/96, p.A1)

1997 Feb, A new economic
package was introduced that would reduce state subsidies, deregulate
food and energy prices, close unprofitable state enterprises and
private others.
(SFC, 2/24/96, p.A10)

1997 May 1, Romania apologized
for deporting tens of thousands of ethnic Germans to labor camps
during Communist rule or “selling” them by demanding cash from the
Bonn government for emigration permits.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A17)

1997 Jul 11, President Clinton
was cheered by tens of thousands of people in Bucharest, Romania,
where he raised hopes for NATO membership.
(AP, 7/11/98)

1997 Aug 7, Prime Minister
Victor Ciorbea announced the closure of 17 factories at the urging
of the IMF. 30,000 jobs would be lost and the following day
thousands protested the closing of the essentially bankrupt
companies.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)

1997 Romanian Orthodox Bishop
Nicolae Corneanu (1924-.2014) confessed he had been an informer
since 1948 and had excommunicated five dissident priests in 1981 who
had accused church leaders of prostituting the church to the demands
of communist rulers.
(AP, 9/29/14)

1998 Jan, In Romania the IMF
froze the disbursement of a $530 million lending program.
(WSJ, 5/6/98, p.A18)

1998 Mar 30, Prime Minister
Victor Ciorbea resigned and stepped down from his role as mayor of
Bucharest.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)

1998 Apr 2, In Romania Radu
Vasile, an economist and leader of the national Peasant Party, was
named by Pres. Emil Constantinescu as the new prime minister. He
soon began reforms with an economic program to restore domestic and
foreign confidence.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 5/6/98, p.A18)

1998 Apr 8, It was reported
that 22 Romanian ships carrying 500 sailors were stranded worldwide
due to economic problems of the state shipping firm, Navrom.
(SFC, 4/898, p.A12)

1998 Nov 23, An Arctic cold
wave was reported to have killed 71 people across Europe over the
last 3 days. 36 deaths were in Poland and 24 in Romania and
Bulgaria.
(SFC, 11/24/98, p.A14)

1998 Dec 3, Brother Cleopa, an
Orthodox monk, died at age 87 at the 14th century Sihastra
Monastery. He was renowned for his lectures and sermons, some of
which were published under the title “Talks with Brother Cleopa,” in
Sobornost, an ecumenical Orthodox and Anglican journal published in
Oxford.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A25)

1999 Apr 21, Romania and the
IMF reached a preliminary agreement for a $500 million loan.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.A15)

1999 May 7, In Romania the Pope
began a 3-day visit. This was his first visit to a country with an
Orthodox Christian majority. The Pope was greeted by Orthodox
Patriarch Teoctist (84).
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A1)(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A10)

1999 Dec 14, In Romania Pres.
Constantinescu fired Prime Minister Radu Vasile, though the
constitution did not grant him that power. Alexandru Athanasiu, the
Labor and Social Welfare minister, was named to replace Vasile. The
average monthly salary was down to $89.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)

1999 Dec 16, Mugur Isarescu,
the central bank chief, was appointed prime minister following a
revolt by Peasants party ministers.
(WSJ, 12/17/99, p.A1)

1999 Dec, In an effort to
exorcise some of its past the government began an auction of the
personal goods of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife
Elena.
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A1)

1999 Romania passed legislation
to allow the opening of files in the archive of Securitate,
Ceausescu’s hated security police. Disclosures began in 2006.
(SSFC, 8/20/06, p.A20)

1999 Renault of France spent
$50 million to acquire a controlling stake in Dacia, a sickly
Romanian car maker formerly owned by the state. The first
Renault-Dacia Logan was produced in 2004. The millionth Logan was
produced in mid 2008.
(Econ, 11/15/08, SR p.14)

2000 Jan 30, In Romania a dam
at the Baia Mare gold mine overflowed and caused cyanide to pout
into the Lapus River and then into the Somes River. It flowed into
Hungary and within weeks into the Tisa (Tisza) River in Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A9)(SFC, 2/18/00, p.A1)

2000 Feb 13, In Yugoslavia the
cyanide spill from Romania reached the Danube and weakened to
nonlethal levels. Life in the Tisa (Tisza) River in Hungary and
Serbia was devastated and Serbia threatened to demand compensation
at an int'l. court.
(SFC, 2/14/00, p.A16)

2000 Mar 10, In Romania some
20,000 tons of metal pollutants escaped into the Vaser River from
the state-owned Baia Borsa mine after a dam broke following heavy
rains and melting snow.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A9)

2000 Mar 25, Paul Calinescu,
the father of Romanian cinema, died at age 98.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.E2)

2001 Jan 18, There was a
cyanide spill in the Siret River. 72 people were later hospitalized
after eating river fish.
(WSJ, 1/25/01, p.A1)

2001 Feb, Romania enacted Law
10 to govern restitution for properties confiscated between 1945 and
1989. In 2006 Romania passed legislation to return property that had
been confiscated under Communist rule, to former owners and to
establish a fund to pay damages for assets that could not be
returned.
(www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/or/64425.htm)(SFC,
5/24/06, p.A2)

2001 Mar 7, The Parliament
voted to require citizens to notify police if foreign guests stay
over 15 days. It also voted to make it a crime for anyone to divulge
state secrets.
(WSJ, 3/8/01, p.A1)

2001 Sep 27, Gellu Naum,
surrealist poet, playwright and translator, died at age 86. His work
included 20 poetry books, of which the 1st was “The Incendiary
Traveler” (1936) and the novel “Zenobia” (1985).
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.A18)

2002 Nov 29, Romania urged the
EU on to reject a request by Hungarian producers for the exclusive
right to sell a regional brandy in EU countries under the generic
name "palinka." The Eastern European brandy, made from fermented
fruit pears, plums, apricots or grapes, has been produced in the
region under different names. In Hungary and in Romania's northwest
region of Transylvania, it is called "palinka," or "palinca," while
in southern Romania it is called "tuica," and in Moldova and
Bulgaria "rakiya."
(AP, 11/30/02)

2002 Dec, In Romania Kurt W.
Treptow of Miami Beach, Fl., was sentenced to the maximum of seven
years in for offenses involving two girls, ages 10 and 13, whom he
invited into his home in Iasi. A Romanian woman was also convicted
of being his accomplice. Treptow was released in 2007 after writing
a book entitled "The life and Times of Vlad Dracul" while in prison.
(AP, 2/27/07)

2002 In Romania almost 90% of
the country’s people at this time were Eastern Orthodox and 1%
Eastern Rite Catholics.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)

2003 Jan 1, Dumitru Tinu (62),
a leading Romanian journalist who covered the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia and steered his newspaper along independent lines
after communism ended, died in a car accident.
(AP, 1/1/03)

2003 Mar 8, In Romania 5
Iraqi diplomats were expelled for “activities incompatible with
their status.” Last week the US expelled two U.N.-based Iraqi
diplomats and identified 300 Iraqis in 60 countries, some operating
as diplomats out of Iraqi embassies, whom it wanted expelled.
(AP, 3/10/03)

2003 Jun 17, Romania's
government acknowledged that its former leaders deported and
exterminated Romanian Jews during World War II.
(AP, 6/17/03)

2003 Sep 22, The jawbone of a
cave-man living in what is now Romania, found in 2002 in Pestera cu
Oase, was reported as the oldest fossil from an early modern human
to be found in Europe. It was carbon-dated to between 34,000 and
36,000 years ago.
(AP, 9/22/03)

2003 Oct 6, Elisabeta Rizea
(91), a Romanian anti-communist resistance fighter whose defiance of
the regime made her a symbol of the fight against tyranny, died.
(AP, 10/7/03)

2003 Oct 19, In Romania
government leaders held an emergency session as many voters avoided
the polls, throwing into doubt a referendum on a new constitution
aimed at helping the country join the European Union.
(AP, 10/19/03)

2003 Oct 21, Romanians
overwhelmingly approved a new constitution designed to prepare the
formerly communist country for membership in the EU.
(AP, 10/21/03)

2004 Aug 7, The Romanian sitcom
"The Winding Road to Europe" featured villagers in the fictional La
Europa pub and swapping stories about how joining the EU will change
their lives. The European Union's Romania office has funded 12
15-minute episodes of "Winding Road" at $16,800 each, 4 of which had
already aired.
(AP, 8/7/04)

2004 Nov 28, Romanians voted
for a president to succeed Ion Iliescu and lead the former communist
country into the European Union. A run off was scheduled for Dec 12
when neither ruling Socialist’s Nastase nor Bucharest Mayor Basescu
received 50%.
(AP, 11/28/04)(WSJ, 11/29/04, p.A1)

2004 Dec 4, A car accident in
Bucharest killed Teofil Peter of the rock band Compact. In 2006 US
Marine Sgt Christopher VanGoethem, a US embassy guard, was acquitted
of negligent homicide by a Marine court in Virginia.
(SFC, 2/1/06, p.A3)

2004 Dec 14, In Romania
Pres.-elect Traian Basescu opened talks to form a coalition
government with a party formerly allied with his opponent and one
representing ethnic Hungarians.
(AP, 12/14/04)

2004 Romania’s main political
parties formed the Coalition for a Clean Parliament, an
anti-corruption pact.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.61)

2005 Jan 1, Romania enacted a
law forbidding int’l. adoptions except to biological grandparents in
an effort to help it win EU membership.
(WSJ, 1/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 1, Romania was
forecast for 5.2% annual GDP growth with a population at 21.7
million and GDP per head at $3,720.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.89)

2005 Jan 16, A 66-year-old
Romanian woman became the world's oldest woman recorded to give
birth when she delivered a daughter by cesarean section.
(AP, 1/17/05)

2005 Apr 22, Al Jazeera
television reported that insurgents gave Romania 4 days to
withdraw its troops from Iraq in order to save the lives of 3
journalists kidnapped last month.
(Reuters, 4/22/05)

2005 Apr 29, Heavy rains in
western Romania have flooded hundreds of villages, forcing 3,700
people to abandon their homes and disrupting rail and road traffic.
(Reuters, 4/29/05)

2005 May 6, Romania's foreign
minister said his government would keep its troops in Iraq
supporting postwar operations despite the kidnapping of three
Romanian journalists.
(AP, 5/6/05)

2005 May 12, Austrian
authorities reported the break up a major human trafficking ring led
by Romanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian criminals who smuggled more than
5,000 East Europeans to the West, many enduring horrific conditions
in tiny hiding spaces in cars, trucks and trailers.
(AP, 5/12/05)

2005 May 22, In Iraq 3 Romanian
journalists and their Iraqi-American guide were freed after nearly
two months in captivity. Mohammed Munaf, their Iraqi-American
translator, was later tried and convicted on charges that he
assisted in the kidnapping. In 2006 Munaf was sentenced to death.
(AP, 5/22/05)(SSFC, 10/15/06, p.A20)

2005 Jun 15, In Romania
Maricica Irina Cornici (23), an Orthodox nun, was found dead, gagged
and chained to a cross. Father Daniel (29), the superior of the Holy
Trinity monastery, had ordered the crucifixion of the young nun
because she was "possessed by the devil." The Orthodox priest
faced murder charges and was unrepentant as he celebrated a funeral
mass for his alleged victim. [see Jun 22]
(AFP, 6/18/05)

2005 Jun 22, A Romanian monk
and four nuns were charged with murder after a nun died during an
exorcism. Maricica Irina Cornici (23) was crucified and left without
food for three days. [see Jun 15] In 2007 the monk and 4 nuns were
given prison sentences from 5-14 years.
(AP, 6/23/05)(AP, 2/19/07)

2005 Jul 7, Romania's PM Calin
Popescu Tariceanu said his Cabinet would resign and early elections
would be called after a court blocked essential justice reforms
required by the EU.
(AP, 7/7/05)

2005 Jul 17, Officials said
heavy rains and flash floods have killed 20 people in the past week
and inundated tens of thousands of homes in Romania. Death for the
month reached 26.
(AP, 7/17/05)

2005 Jul 27, The UN started
evacuating more than 400 refugees from a camp in Kyrgyzstan and will
fly them to a third country to keep them from being sent home to
Uzbekistan where they fear prosecution. Uzbekistan has been
pressuring Kyrgyzstan to hand over the refugees, and Kyrgyz
officials relented in recent weeks, sending at least 87 of them
back.
(AP, 7/27/05)

2005 Aug 22, Romania’s PM Calin
Tariceanu reshuffled his center-right government, replacing four
ministers including those in charge of finance and European
integration after criticism of several cabinet members.
(AP, 8/22/05)

2005 Oct 6, Romania said it has
deported five students accused of having ties to al-Qaida and trying
to recruit members of the country's Muslim community.
(AP, 10/6/05)

2005 Oct 8, Romania reported
new cases of avian flu in the Danube delta on the Black Sea and
started to cull hundreds of birds to prevent the disease from
spreading.
(AP, 10/8/05)

2005 Oct 9, The slaughter of
thousands of domestic fowl in Romania and Turkey began as a
precaution against the spread of bird flu after both countries
confirmed their first cases of the disease over the weekend.
(AP, 10/10/05)

2005 Oct 15, The European
Commission said tests have confirmed a link between the bird flu
found in Romania and the virus that has devastated flocks in Asia
and turned up in Turkey.
(AP, 10/15/05)

2005 Nov 3, European Union
officials said they would investigate a report that the CIA set up
secret jails in Eastern Europe to interrogate top al-Qaida suspects.
The international Red Cross also said it asked the US to let a
representative visit detainees if such a facility exists. At least
10 nations denied that the prisons were in their territory. Human
Rights Watch in New York said it has evidence indicating the CIA
transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland
and Romania.
(AP, 11/3/05)

2005 Dec 6, US Sec. of State
Condoleeza Rice signed an agreement with Romania to open US military
bases there. One site was identified by Human Rights Watch as the
site for a clandestine prison.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)

2006 Jan 14, In southwestern
Romania 7 miners were killed and five injured in a gas explosion at
a mine. Union leaders blamed it on a lack of investment in safety
measures.
(AP, 1/14/06)

2006 Jan 29, In Bucharest,
Romania, a stray dog killed a Japanese businessman. The mayor called
for a crash program of canine sterilization and euthanasia to
control the city’s 60,000 stray dogs.
(www.inyourpocket.com/romania/bucharest/en/)(Econ, 2/4/06, p.48)

2006 Feb 16, In Romania
authorities investigating the leak of secret military documents,
including details on coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,
arrested Marian Garleanu, a Romanian journalist, for possession of
leaked material. Garleanu denied any wrongdoing and said he was
targeted because he has repeatedly exposed corruption in the
Ministry of Defense.
(AP, 2/17/06)

2006 Apr 5, Home Secretary
Charles Clarke said London would press for Romania to be granted
membership of the European Union "as soon as possible" as he praised
the country's work against people trafficking.
(AFP, 4/5/06)

2006 Aug 18, In Greece a
700-year-old icon, said to have the power to work miracles, was
discovered stolen from the cliff-side Elona Monastery. In September
police arrested a Romanian national in Crete and recovered the
Madonna and Child icon.
(SSFC, 10/8/06, p.A26)(http://tinyurl.com/grxc8)

2006 Aug 22, The Orizont, a
leased Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran, came under fire from
Iranian military vessels and was later occupied by Iranian troops. A
2nd Romanian rig had recently been towed from Iranian waters due to
unpaid bills.
(AP, 8/22/06)(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.A8)

2006 Aug, In Romania the heads
of the leading spy agencies quit along with the top prosecutor after
they failed to keep track of Omar Hayssam. The Syrian-born
businessman, arrested on terrorism charges, fled Romania after being
paroled for health reasons.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.62)

2006 Sep 2, In Romania liberal
leaders expelled Mona Musca, one of the country's most popular
politicians, from the party after she admitted to having
collaborated with the Securitate secret police under the communist
dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu.
(AP, 9/2/06)

2006 Sep 26, The European
Commission recommended that Bulgaria and Romania join the EU next
year, but under some of the harshest terms ever faced by new
members.
(AP, 9/26/06)

2006 Oct 24, Britain said
Bulgarians and Romanians will have only limited rights to work in
Britain for at least a year after their countries join the European
Union on January 1.
(AP, 10/24/06)

2006 Dec 10, In Romania more
than 6,000 inmates at 24 prisons took part in hunger strikes and
other protests to demand amnesty and better living conditions.
(AP, 12/10/06)

2006 In Romania the
Institute for Investigating the Crimes of Communism and the Memory
of the Romanian Exile was founded by Liberal PM Calin Popescu
Tariceanu.
(AP, 7/11/13)
2006 Romania handed over key
Securitate files and a master index to an independent institute. In
2008 the government issued an emergency decree to keep the institute
open after a court ruled its work unlawful.
(Econ, 5/31/08, SR p.13)
2006 At least 2 million of
Romania’s 22 million people worked abroad, mostly in farm jobs.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.48)

2007 Jan 1, Bulgaria and
Romania joined the EU. Some 30,000 Israelis gained EU citizenship
due to their dual registration in Romania.
(WSJ, 10/4/07, p.A11)(AP, 1/1/07)

2007 Feb 19, Daniel Petru
Corogeanu, a Romanian priest, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
In 2005 he had led a dayslong exorcism ritual with 4 nuns for
Maricica Irina Cornici (23), a young nun, that ended with the
woman's death. One of the nuns, Nicoleta Arcalianu, was sentenced to
eight years in prison, and the other three, Adina Cepraga, Elena
Otel and Simona Bardanas, received five-year sentences.
(AP, 2/19/07)

2007 Apr 19, Romania's
parliament voted to suspend the popular president who ushered in
economic and social reforms to help the country join the European
Union, accusing him of abusing his constitutional powers. President
Traian Basescu had earlier vowed to resign "within five minutes" if
lawmakers voted to suspend him. His resignation would prompt a new
election within three months, and he has said he would run again for
office. Former president Nicolae Vacaroiu (1992-1996) became acting
president.
(AP, 4/19/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.61)

2007 May 2, Romania’s
Parliament approved an agreement allowing the US to use four
military bases and station up to 3,000 troops in the former
communist country.
(AP, 5/3/07)

2007 May 19, Romanians voted on
whether to impeach President Traian Basescu, who has been accused of
violating the constitution but remains popular among the public.
Basescu, suspended on grounds he abused power, easily survived a
referendum on his impeachment, with partial results indicating about
three-fourths of the votes supporting the leader.
(AP, 5/19/07)(AP, 5/20/07)

2007 May 23, Romania's
suspended President Traian Basescu was reinstated after he won a
referendum on his removal from office.
(AP, 5/23/07)

2007 May 27, Christian Mungiu,
a Romanian director, won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or for his
“3 Weeks and 2 Days,” which looked at abortion during the communist
era. Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” a film on the inequities of America’s
health system, also featured at Cannes.
(WSJ, 5/29/07, p.A1)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.32)

2007 Jun 8, A European
investigator issued a report saying the CIA ran secret prisons in
Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005 to interrogate detainees in the
war on terror.
(AP, 6/8/07)

2007 Jun 14, Romania's
government defended its decision to return "Dracula's Castle" to
members of the former royal family, denying allegations that the
decision was illegal.
(AP, 6/14/07)

2007 Jun 19, In Romania
hundreds of retirees took to the streets in Bucharest and about 20
other towns to demand that pensions be raised to at least 45% of the
average national salary and other benefits. Romania numbered 6
million retirees out of a population of 22 million.
(AP, 6/20/07)

2007 Jun 23, In Romania a bear
attacked a group of US tourists on a remote trail in the Carpathian
Mountains, killing a woman and injuring two other people.
(AP, 6/24/07)

2007 Jun 26, Sizzling
temperatures in Greece, Italy and Romania brought power cuts and
brush fires in a heat wave that has led to at least 38 deaths in
southeast Europe in recent days.
(AP, 6/26/07)

2007 Jul 22, The death toll
from Romania's heat wave rose to 15 after 6 more people died as
temperatures hovered around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
(AP, 7/22/07)

2007 Jul 27, Victor Frunza
(72), a Romanian anti-communist dissident and writer, died in
Denmark of a heart attack. He was forced to leave Romania in 1980
after writing a letter critical of the communist regime led by
dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. While in Romania, Frunza secretly wrote
a history of communism in the country that was published in Denmark
in 1984. He also wrote essays championing human rights and published
a political magazine.
(AP, 7/30/07)

2007 Jul 30, Patriarch Teoctist
(b.1915), head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, died in Bucharest,
He made history when he invited the late John Paul II to his
Orthodox country in 1999 but was criticized for being too close to
former Communists.
(AP, 7/30/07)

2007 Aug 1, It was reported
that more than 100 Serbian Gypsies have crossed the border illegally
into neighboring Romania in recent days and filed applications for
asylum claiming they were subject to abuse and attacks in Serbia.
(AP, 8/1/07)

2007 Aug 17, Romania and the US
started military training exercises to test installations that will
become the first US facilities in the former Soviet bloc, a plan
opposed by Russia.
(Reuters, 8/30/07)

2007 Sep 15, It was reported
that nearly 90% of Romania’s 22 million people adhere to the
Romanian Orthodox Church. Its $4 billion fortune makes it the
country’s 6th biggest enterprise.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.66)

2007 Oct 22,
Romania's President Traian Basescu apologized for the
deportation of thousands of Gypsies to Nazi death camps during World
War II, the first time a government official has done so publicly.
(AP, 10/23/07)

2007 Oct 30, In Italy Giovanna
Reggiani (47) was brutally attacked as she returned home in northern
Rome. She died 2 days later. Nicolae Mailat, a Romanian Gypsy,
admitted to snatching her bag but denied her murder. Her attack
triggered a public outcry.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.63)

2007 Nov 1, Italy's president
signed a decree allowing the expulsion of EU citizens "for reasons
of public safety" to fight "episodes of heavy violence and ferocious
crime." This followed the Oct 30 attack on a 47-year-old woman as
she walked along a road after dark toward barracks where she lived.
She was beaten, dragged through mud and left half naked in a ditch.
The woman died 2 days later. Police arrested Nicolae Mailat a
Romanian in his 20s, who lives in a shack in one of several
sprawling settlements on the outskirts of Rome.
(AP, 11/2/07)

2007 Nov 2, Italy began
deporting Romanians with criminal records in response to a streak of
violent crime blamed on immigrants. In Rome up to 10 people wearing
motorcycle helmets attacked a group of Romanians with knives, metal
bars and sticks in the parking lot of a supermarket. Three Romanians
were injured. As part of the crackdown, bulldozers in Rome for a
second day knocked down shantytowns where thousands of foreigners
lived without permits.
(AP, 11/3/07)

2007 Dec 1, At the 20th annual
European Film Awards in Berlin Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's
"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" won the best film prize.
(AP, 12/1/07)

2007 New amendments to
Romania’s penal code prescribed jail sentences of up to 7 years for
journalists who publish material showing officials involved in
bribe-taking. The code also raised the financial threshold for
corruption charges.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.64)
2007 In Romania agriculture
ministers Decebal Traian Remes resigned his Cabinet post after
prosecutors accused him of taking a bribe of $21,000 (euro15,800)
and the promise of homemade sausages and plum brandy from Ioan
Muresan, a former agriculture minister who allegedly was acting on
behalf of businessman Gheorghe Ciorba.
(AP, 2/14/12)
2007 The population of Romania
numbered about 22 million people and counted 4.5 million farms and
smallholdings. This represented almost a third of all the farm
holdings in the EU.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.63)

2008 Jan 24, In Britain almost
two dozen Romanians were arrested after police swooped on a child
slave gang.
(Reuters, 1/24/08)

2008 Jan 31, Romania’s
Constitutional Court struck down the 1999 law that opened Romania's
secret police archives. It effectively forced the Council for the
Study of the Securitate Archives to shut down, and makes its
previous decisions null.
(AP, 2/1/08)

2008 May 19, The US Justice
Department said international investigators have busted a vast
Internet fraud network and charged 38 suspects, most of them
Romanians living in the US.
(AFP, 5/19/08)

2008 Jun 13, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber hit a NATO military convoy, causing
casualties. A Romanian soldier was killed and three others injured
in Qalat, the capital of southern Zabul province. In south-central
Uruzgan province, Afghan and NATO-led forces killed 17 Taliban. In
eastern Paktia province, an operation by US-led coalition forces
resulted in the deaths of a woman and a number of militants. In
Ghazni province a coalition air strike killed seven Taliban
militants.
(AFP, 6/13/08)

2008 Jun 30, Brahim Deby, the
eldest son of Chad’s President Idriss Deby, was found dead in the
basement of his apartment building in a Paris suburb. He was
asphyxiated by chemicals from a fire extinguisher that lay near his
body. In late November Romanian police arrested a French-Romanian
national identified as Marius C. after on a warrant from France.
(AP,
11/28/08)(www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02560147.htm)

2008 Jul 27, Floods in western
Ukraine killed 22 people, including 4 children, and 5 in neighboring
Romania after 5 days of nonstop rain. A senior government official
described them as the worst in a century. Heavy rain in the
southwestern Carpathian Mountains caused the Prut and Dniestr rivers
to overflow. The flooding affected more than 40,000 houses and led
to the evacuation of some 20,000 people.
(Reuters, 7/27/08)(AP, 7/28/08)

2008 Aug 5, The UN said heavy
rains and storms have led to some of the worst floods in 40 years in
parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania since July 22, causing great
damage to homes, infrastructure and farmland. In Ukraine, 34 people
have been killed in the west of the country along the Dnestr and
Prut rivers; in Moldova, three people are reported to have drowned
in the capital Chisinau; in Romania five people have been killed.
(AFP, 8/5/08)

2008 Oct 7, In Romania some
7,000 workers and trade unionists marched around the parliament in
Bucharest to demand higher salaries and better working conditions.
(AP, 10/7/08)

2008 Oct 23, In Romania vandals
rampaged through a sprawling Jewish cemetery in Bucharest, toppling
tombstones and smashing markers for as many as 200 graves.
(AP, 10/24/08)

2008 Nov 6, Romania's defense
minister says the country's 501 peacekeepers in Iraq will all leave
by the end of the year.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2008 Nov 6, A Romanian computer
programmer who hacked into computers used by the U.S. Navy, the
Department of Energy and NASA was convicted on Romanian charges and
ordered to pay thousands in damages. Victor Faur (28) was also given
a 16-month suspended prison sentence. In 2006 Faur was indicted in
the United States on nine federal counts of computer intrusion and
one of conspiracy.
(AP, 11/10/08)

2008 Nov 23, In southern Brazil
weekend rains caused rivers to overflow their banks. The resulting
floods and mudslides left at least 99 people dead. In northeastern
Paragominas a mob of about 3,000 people, enraged by a crackdown on
illegal logging, trashed a government office, and tried to attack
environmental workers.
(AP, 11/25/08)(AP, 11/24/08)(AP, 11/27/08)

2008 Nov 30, Romanians trickled
to the polls to elect a new parliament, as the leftist Social
Democrats and right-wing Liberal Democrats battled it out ahead of
PM Calin Tariceanu's Liberals. The leftist Social Democrats won the
most votes, but failed to get enough support to take power outright.
(AP, 11/30/08)(SFC, 12/1/08, p.A4)

2008 Dec 1, Romania's
parliamentary election results showed the centrist and leftist
parties less than a percentage point apart with more than 90 percent
of the vote counted, raising the prospect of tough negotiations to
form a coalition.
(AP, 12/1/08)

2008 Dec 5, In Romania
Constantin Ticu Dumitrescu (80), once jailed as a communist-era
"enemy of the state," died after years of fighting to reveal details
of the country's troubled past.
(AP, 12/5/08)

2008 Dec 10, In Romania Theodor
Stolojan (65), former World Bank economist, was chosen to become the
next prime minister. On Dec 15 Stolojan renounced the job and was
replaced by Emil Boc (42), the leader of the same centrist
Democratic Liberal Party.
(SFC, 12/11/08, p.A4)(AP, 12/15/08)

2009 Jan 3, Russian gas flows
to four European Union countries fell normal levels after Moscow cut
off supplies to Ukraine in a pricing row with no talks in sight to
resolve the dispute. Bulgaria's Bulgargaz joined energy firms in
Poland, Romania and Hungary in saying they had noted falls in
supply.
(Reuters, 1/3/09)

2009 Jan 6, A natural gas
crisis loomed over Europe, as a contract dispute between Russia and
Ukraine shut off Russian gas supplies to six countries and reduced
gas deliveries to several others. Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia,
Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments.
(AP, 1/6/09)

2009 Feb 4, Romania’s central
bank cut interest rates by a quarter point to 10%, still the highest
in the EU.
(WSJ, 2/5/09, p.A8)

2009 Feb 8, Voters in
Switzerland approved an expanded labor deal with the European Union
that allows Romanians and Bulgarians to work in the Alpine republic.
(AP, 2/8/09)

2009 Mar 25, Romania was given
a loan totaling 20 billion euros (27 billion dollars) by the IMF,
the EU, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD). An austerity program accompanied the loans.
(AP, 3/26/09)

2009 Apr 23, Former King
Michael of Romania took the unusual step of endorsing his son-in-law
as a candidate in the country's next presidential election.
(AP, 4/23/09)

2009 Jun 8, Final results
showed a British far-right party won its first-ever parliamentary
seats in EU elections. The British National Party, which does not
accept nonwhite members and calls for the "voluntary repatriation"
of immigrants, won two of Britain's 72 seats in the European
Parliament. Austria's Freedom Party, which also campaigned on an
anti-Islam platform, more than doubled its share of the vote to
13.1%. Hungary's Jobbik party, which describes itself as
Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration and wants police to crack down on
what it calls "Gypsy crime," won three of the country's 22 seats and
almost 15% of the vote. The Greater Romania Party, which is, among
other things, pro-religion, anti-gay and anti-Hungarian, made
surprise gains, winning almost 9% of the vote and taking two of
Romania's 33 seats. A bloc of center-right parties remained the
largest group.
(AP, 6/8/09)

2009 Jun 23, Northern Ireland’s
government said more than 100 Romanian Gypsies who suffered racist
attacks and intimidation in Belfast are being flown back home at
taxpayer expense.
(AP, 6/24/09)

2009 Jul 13, Turkey and four EU
countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary) formally agreed
to route the Nabucco natural gas pipeline across their territories,
pushing ahead with a US- and EU-backed attempt to make Europe less
dependent on Russian gas.
(AP, 7/13/09)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.47)

2009 Aug 26, In Bucharest,
Romania, fans at first politely applauded the Roma performers
sharing a stage with Madonna. Then the pop star condemned widespread
discrimination against Roma, or Gypsies, and the cheers gave way to
jeers. Official Romanian data put the local Roma population at
500,000.
(AP, 8/27/09)

2009 Sep 28, In Romania Gen.
Nicolae Plesita (b.1929), a die-hard Communist and ruthless chief of
the Securitate secret police (1980-1984), died. He had arranged
shelter in Romania for terrorist Carlos the Jackal, and was tried
for the 1981 bombing in Munich of Radio Free Europe.
(AP, 9/30/09)

2009 Oct 1, Romania's coalition
government collapsed after nine ministers from the Social Democrats
quit to protest the firing of interior minister Dan Nica. Social
Democratic Party leader Mircea Geoana said the ministers resigned
"in solidarity" with Nica, who was fired by PM Emil Boc on Sep 28
over a statement about potential fraud in the upcoming Nov 22
election.
(AP, 10/1/09)

2009 Oct 8, Herta Mueller (56)
won the Nobel Prize in literature in an award seen as a nod to the
20th anniversary of communism's collapse. She was member of
Romania's ethnic German minority persecuted for her critical
depictions of life behind the Iron Curtain. She made her debut in
1982 with a collection of short stories titled "Niederungen," or
"Nadirs," depicting the harshness of life in a small,
German-speaking village in Romania. It was promptly censored by the
communist government. Some of her works have been translated into
English, French and Spanish, including "The Passport," "The Land of
Green Plums," "Traveling on One Leg" and "The Appointment."
(AP, 10/8/09)
2009 Oct 8, Romania unveiled a
monument in memory of some 300,000 Jews and Gypsies killed during
the Holocaust in the country, which at times denied that the
extermination even happened.
(AP, 10/8/09)

2009 Oct 13, Romania's
government fell in a confidence vote in Parliament. Lawmakers said
it failed to improve the economy after going into recession
following 3 years of growth. A total of 254 parliamentary deputies
and senators voted to oust PM Emil Boc, more than the 236 needed,
and 176 voted against. Under the constitution it was up to Pres.
Traian Basescu to name a new prime minister.
(AP, 10/13/09)

2009 Nov 22, Romania held
elections. President Traian Basescu received 32.7% of the vote,
while Mircea Geoana won 30.1%, in first official results based on
around 85% of the vote counted in an election tainted by accusations
of fraud.
(AP, 11/23/09)

2009 Dec 6, Romanians voted in
a presidential run-off hoping to put an end to a political standoff
holding up crucial international aid to the recession-wracked EU
member. Center-right President Traian Basescu, a former sea captain
promising tough state reforms, faced Social-Democrat Mircea Geoana,
an ex-diplomat who has pledged to maintain jobs and "reunite
Romania" after years of political squabbling. Basescu won with
50.33% of the vote. Supporters of Geoana charged that the election
was marred by fraud. The final result was determined by Romanians
abroad who favored Basescu by 78%.
(AFP, 12/6/09)(SFC, 12/8/09, p.A4)(Econ,
12/12/09, p.60)

2010 Feb 4, Romania’s Pres.
Traian Basescu says the country's top defense body has approved a US
proposal to place anti-ballistic interceptors in Romania as part of
a revamped US missile shield. The measure passed the Supreme Defense
Council and must be approved by Parliament.
(AP, 2/4/10)

2010 Feb 23, In Afghan Gen.
Stanley McChrystal apologized for the Feb 21 strike in central
Uruzgan province that Afghan officials say killed at least 21
people. The video was also posted on a NATO Web site. The civilian
deaths occurred as 15,000 NATO, US and Afghan soldiers were in their
10th day of fighting insurgents in Marjah, Helmand province. A
Romanian soldier was killed and another was wounded in a bombing in
the south unrelated to the offensive. A morning explosion in Lashkar
Gah, the capital of Helmand, left eight people dead and at least 16
others wounded. The death toll of US troops in the Afghan war
surpassed the grim milestone of 1,000.
(AP, 2/23/10)

2010 Jun 18, Romania's finance
ministry said the cash-strapped government is asking for donations
to a solidarity fund set up to boost budget revenues and cushion the
impact of the economic crisis.
(Reuters, 6/18/10)

2010 Jun 23, Romania's most
notorious television journalist and his producer were formally
arrested and detained for 29 days on charges of blackmailing and
threatening a mayor. Dan Diaconescu and producer Doru Parv were
arrested after a 7-hour overnight court hearing. They were charged
with demanding money from Ion Motz, the mayor of Zarand village, to
avoid broadcasting compromising material about him.
(AP, 6/23/10)

2010 Jun 29, In Romania
authorities said ten people have died and three were missing after
heavy rains and flooding in the northeast.
(AP, 6/29/10)

2010 Jul 5, A Romanian military
plane crashed near the Black Sea, killing 10 people and injuring
three. The Antonov AN-2 plane with 13 people on board took off for
parachuting training and crashed soon after takeoff.
(AP, 7/5/10)

2010 Jul 21, In Romania
forensic scientists exhumed what are believed to be the bodies of
Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena to solve the
mystery of where they are truly buried.
(AP, 7/21/10)

2010 Jul 26, In central Romania
an Israeli helicopter crashed with no survivors among the six
Israeli and one Romanian soldiers on board.
(AP, 7/27/10)

2010 Aug 2, Romania's central
bank issued a special coin commemorating Miron Cristea, a prime
minister (1938-1939) and religious leader, who stripped Jews of
their citizenship before World War II. The move prompted protest
from Romanian Jews as well as a director at the US Holocaust
Memorial Museum.
(AP, 8/3/10)

2010 Aug 16, In Romania a fire
at a Bucharest maternity hospital killed 3 babies. A 4th died the
next day and seven remained in critical condition. The accident
provoked a wave of public indignation, throwing light on Romania's
poorly funded and understaffed health system.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Russia Gabriel
Grecu, first secretary in the political department of the Romanian
Embassy in Moscow, was detained while trying to obtain secret
military information from a Russian citizen. He was given 48 hours
to leave the country.
(AP, 8/16/10)

2010 Aug 19, France deported
nearly 100 Gypsies, or Roma, to their native Romania as part of a
very public effort by conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy to
dismantle Roma camps and sweep them out of the country.
(AP, 8/19/10)

2010 Aug 20, France put about
100 Gypsies, or Roma, on a charter flight headed to their native
Romania, the second day in a row that it has expelled Roma in a much
criticized government crackdown.
(AP, 8/20/10)

2010 Sep 9, The European
Parliament called on France to suspend its expulsion of gypsies. The
rare criticism of an EU state was backed by 337 lawmakers meeting in
Strasbourg, France, with 245 opposed and 51 abstentions. To date
France had deported 8,000 people to Romania and Bulgaria this year
alone.
(AP, 9/9/10)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.73)

2010 Sep 24, In Romania some
6,000 police officers protested plans to cut their wages by 25
percent, part of government's austerity measures to reduce the
budget deficit. Pres. Basescu asked the interior ministry to
withdraw his police protection shortly after the protest.
(AP, 9/26/10)

2010 Sep 27, The Romanian
government was in an uproar over austerity protests. The interior
minister resigned, the opposition demanded the prime minister go as
well and top police officials held emergency talks with the
president.
(AP, 9/27/10)

2010 Oct 1, In southern
Afghanistan 2 coalition soldiers were killed in a blast while on
patrol. NATO said it has captured more insurgent leaders and
announced it has detained at least 438 suspected militants over the
last month. Just north of Kandahar, two Romanian soldiers were
killed and one injured when their Humvee was struck by an improvised
explosive device some 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Qalat in Zabul
province.
(AP, 10/1/10)

2010 Oct 27, Romania government
survived a no-confidence, as some 30,000 people demonstrated in
Bucharest against the nation's wage cuts and austerity measures.
(AP, 10/27/10)(SFC, 10/28/10, p.A2)

2010 In Romania Emil Boc's
government increased sales tax from 19 percent to 24 percent and cut
public workers' salaries by a quarter to reduce the budget deficit.
(AP, 2/6/12)

2011 Jan 6, Romanian witches
angry about having to pay income taxes for the first time hurled
poisonous mandrake into the Danube River to cast spells on the
president and government.
(AP, 1/6/11)

2011 Feb 5, In Romania five
miners died in an explosion at a coal mine in the Jiu Valley mining
region.
(AP, 2/5/11)

2011 Feb 22, Ion Hobana (80),
Romania's best-known science fiction writer, died in Bucharest. His
works were translated abroad has died. His last book, a history of
French science fiction before 1900, was published in November.
(AP, 2/23/11)

2011 Mar 10, Romania's Pres.
Traian Basescu signed a law making Feb. 20 an official holiday to
mark when the slavery of Gypsies, or Roma, was abolished. Roma
slavery was abolished Feb. 20, 1856, but discrimination persists
against the group.
(AP, 3/11/11)

2011 Jul 16, Bulgarian railway
workers found seals on a train carriage door broken, and the door
not properly closed. 64 unarmed missile warheads from the train
transporting military equipment to Bulgaria from Romania were
missing. The components were said to not be dangerous.
(AP, 7/18/11)

2011 Aug 16, Romania’s
controversial Tourism Minister Elena Udrea sparked outrage with a
frock she admitted cost as much as many Romanians make in more than
a month. She defended the $1290 dress, insisting it cost less than
the thousands of euros that media has reported.
(AP, 8/17/11)

2011 Sep 13, Romania signed a
deal to host a crucial part of a US missile defense system.
Romania's President Traian Basescu announced the deal after meeting
with President Obama in Washington. Under NATO plans, a limited
system of US anti-missile interceptors and radars planned for Europe
include interceptors in Romania and Poland as well as radar in
Turkey.
(AP, 9/14/11)

2011 Oct 19, Romania's
government approved a draft law that permits the building of an
anti-ballistic interceptor site in the country as part of a US
missile shield.
(AP, 10/19/11)

2011 Nov 16, A court in Romania
ordered the arrest of a Romanian man accused of hacking into NASA's
servers in December, 2010, causing NASA losses of about $500,000
(euro371,000). A court spokesman said Robert Butyka (26) would be
arrested for 29 days as he awaits trial.
(AP, 11/16/11)

2011 Nov 22, Romanian lawmakers
voted to make it legal to euthanize the thousands of stray dogs that
roam the country's streets, angering animal rights activists who
have lobbied for months to stop the measure. The law will allow
officials to round up homeless dogs from the street, hold them in
shelters for 30 days and then have them killed. President Traian
Basescu was expected to sign the law.
(AP, 11/22/11)

2011 Dec, Romania’s former PM
Adrian Nastase (2000-2004) a key member of the opposition Social
Democracy Party, was cleared of corruption charges in a trial where
he was accused of paying a bribe to a government official in charge
of preventing money laundering to destroy documents regarding a bank
deposit of $400,000 (euro308,000) by Nastase's wife.
(AP, 1/30/12)

2012 Jan 13, In Romania
demonstrations began on behalf of Raed Arafat, a popular health care
official. He had quit over a plan to privatize a medical emergency
system, which he had set up. On Jan 17 the government gave him back
his job and said it would rethink its health plans.
(Econ, 1/21/12, p.57)

2012 Jan 15, In Romania
protests continued in cities for a 4th day reflecting widespread
anger against austerity measures and an unpopular government.
(AP, 1/15/12)

2012 Jan 16, In Romania dozens
of demonstrators gathered in downtown Bucharest as PM Emil Boc
warned that violent protests, that left 59 injured over the weekend,
could jeopardize stability and economic growth.
(AP, 1/16/12)

2012 Jan 20, In Romania crowds
gathered in Bucharest for the eighth day as a US official urged
Romanians to avoid the violence that has tarred anti-government
protests that have left more than 60 people injured.
(AP, 1/20/12)

2012 Jan 24, Romania's PM Emil
Bloc used a national Day of Unity holiday to call for unity as
thousands of protesters angry at the government's failure to reverse
falling living standards turned their ire toward state media.
(AP, 1/24/12)

2012 Jan 30, Romania's highest
court sentenced former PM Adrian Nastase (2000-2004) to two years in
prison after convicting him of illegally raising funds for a failed
presidential campaign.
(AP, 1/30/12)

2012 Feb 3, The death toll from
a severe cold spell in Eastern Europe rose to 222, including 101 in
the Ukraine, 37 in Poland, 24 in Romania and 16 in Bulgaria.
(AFP, 2/1/12)

2012 Feb 6, Romania's
government collapsed following weeks of protests against austerity
measures, the latest debt-stricken government in Europe to fall in
the face of raising public anger over biting cuts. President Traian
Basescu appointed Justice Minister Catalin Predoiu, the only
minister in Emil Boc's Cabinet who is not a member of any political
party, to be interim prime minister pending the formation of a new
government.
(AP, 2/6/12)

2012 Feb 9, Romania's
Parliament approved a government led by former spy chief Mihai
Razvan Ungureanu (43), which the ruling coalition hopes will improve
its popularity ahead of parliamentary elections this year. His
Cabinet has seven ministers from the previous cabinet, but new,
younger ministers for the key portfolios of economy, finance,
interior ministry and agriculture.
(AP, 2/9/12)

2012 Feb 13, Military planes
flew in tons of emergency food to towns and villages in eastern
Romania where thousands have been stranded by blizzards.
(AP, 2/13/12)

2012 Feb 14, A Romania court in
Bucharest ruled that former agriculture ministers Decebal Traian
Remes and Ioan Muresan took bribes and engaged in
influence-peddling. Both were sentenced to 3 years in prison.
(AP, 2/14/12)
2012 Feb 14, Romania's top
court recognized Prince Paul Hohenzollern as the legitimate grandson
of former King Carol II, ending a 21-year-legal battle.
(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 14, Snow as deep as 15
feet (4.5m) isolated areas of Albania, Moldova and Romania, and
helicopters and army trucks were used to deliver food and medicine,
and to transport sick people to hospitals. Officials said 5
Romanians died in the past 24 hours due to frigid temperatures,
bringing the total to 79 weather-related deaths since the nation's
cold spell began.
(AP, 2/14/12)

2012 Feb 15, Authorities said
more than 600 people in Eastern Europe have died during a
record-breaking cold snap. Officials in the Czech Republic blamed
two massive car pile-ups on blinding snow. Authorities in Russia
said 205 people have died, while in Ukraine there have been 112
fatalities; in Poland, 107. Authorities said 7 people have died in
Romania in the past 24 hours, bringing the total there to 86 deaths.
(AP, 2/15/12)

2012 Apr 9, In Spain four
people died in a fire that destroyed a makeshift hut in which they
were living in the northeastern city of Barcelona. Spanish National
Radio cited police at the scene as saying they were Romanians.
(AP, 4/9/12)

2012 Apr 27, Romania's
government fell in a no-confidence vote, as opposition parties
seized on widespread public anger over biting austerity measures,
cronyism and corruption. Some 235 lawmakers voted against the
government of PM Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, four more votes than
needed.
(AP, 4/27/12)

2012 May 7, In Romania Victor
Ponta (b.1972), head of the Social Democratic party, took office as
prime minister. Ponta's government quickly moved to remove both
speakers of Parliament and replace them with figures from the
governing coalition.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Ponta)(AP,
7/17/12)

2012 Jun 19, Romania’s PM
Victor Ponta faced claims that he had plagiarized half of his
doctoral thesis. Two of his education ministers had already resigned
for allegedly copying academic work. On June 29 an academic panel
ruled that Ponta had plagiarized large sections of his thesis and
called for him to be stripped of his doctorate. Ponta soon fired the
academic body that upheld the charges.
(SFC, 6/20/12, p.A2)(SFC, 6/30/12, p.A2)(Econ,
7/14/12, p.47)

2012 Jun 20, In Romania former
PM Adrian Nastase shot himself and was hospitalized hours after a
court upheld a 2-year prison sentence on corruption charges.
(SFC, 6/21/12, p.A2)

2012 Jul 6, Romanian lawmakers
impeached President Traian Basescu (60) in a 216-114 vote, paving
the way for a national referendum that could see the divisive and
increasingly unpopular leader ousted from the powerful position he's
held for eight years. Basescu's opponents accused him of
overstepping his authority by meddling with the prime minister's
office and trying to influence judicial affairs.
(AP, 7/6/12)

2012 Jul 17, Romania's interim
President Cris Antonescu signed a new law that requires a majority
of registered voters to take part in a referendum for it to be
valid, giving suspended President Traian Basescu a fighting chance
of remaining in office when his impeachment comes up for a public
vote.
(AP, 7/17/12)

2012 Jul 29, Romanians voted on
whether to oust Pres. Traian Basescu (60), part of a political
battle that has raised questions about the rule of law in the
fledgling European Union member. A rule required turnout to be more
than half of the total electorate. The effort failed because of low
voter turnout.
(AP, 7/29/12)(SFC, 7/30/12, p.A4)

2012 Oct 23, Romania's highest
court upheld the conviction of Archbishop Pimen (83) for serving as
an informant sent by the church and the Securitate to spy on fellow
clergy and members of Romania's expatriate community in the United
States in the 1970s.
(AP, 10/23/12)

2012 Nov 1, In Romania
prosecutors interviewed 100 people and raided some 50 homes and
offices in Bucharest, Giurgiu and Calarasi. 33 bankers and
government officials were detained on suspicion of money laundering
and fraud that cost the state €22 million ($28.5 million).
(AP, 11/2/12)

2012 Dec 9, Romanians voted in
a parliamentary election. PM Victor Ponta's coalition won nearly
three-fifths of the seats in the legislature. His battle with
President Traian Basescu threatened to throw the country into a
political standoff no matter the outcome.
(AP, 12/9/12)(AP, 12/10/12)

2012 Dec 20, Authorities
declared a state of emergency in northeastern Bulgaria as heavy snow
and freezing temperatures are causing disruptions in both Bulgaria
and Romania.
(AP, 12/20/12)

2012 Dec 28, In Romania
influential banker Bogdan Baltazar (73) died. He became Romania's
first government spokesman in 1990 after the collapse of communism.
(AP, 12/28/12)

2013 Feb 9, The French and
British governments promised to punish those found responsible for
selling horsemeat in beef products. French consumer safety
authorities said companies from Romania, Cyprus and the Netherlands
were part of a supply chain that resulted in horsemeat being
disguised as beef in frozen lasagna sold around the continent.
(Reuters, 2/9/13)(AP, 2/10/13)

2013 Mar 19, Romania's defense
minister said US plans to deploy anti-missile interceptors in his
country are going ahead and that Romania has an "exceptional"
partnership with the United States. US officials have stressed they
will deploy shorter-range missiles to Poland and Romania.
(AP, 3/19/13)

2013 May 27, The Romanian
village of Clinceni unfurled the world’s largest flag. The Romanian
flag measured 1,145 by 744.5 feet.
(SFC, 5/28/13, p.A3)

2013 Jun 14, A new bridge
linking Vidin in Bulgaria with Calafat in Romania opened. It was
just the 2nd on the 500-km stretch of the Danube River that forms
the common border between the Balkan neighbors.
(AP, 6/14/13)

2013 Jun 23, In Montenegro a
bus fell from a bridge over the Moraca river during a rainstorm and
crashed some 40 meters (130 feet) into a ravine. 18 Romanian
tourists were killed and 28 hospitalized.
(AP, 6/24/13)

2013 Jul 12, Romania's
Transport Minister Relu Fenechiu was handed a five year prison
sentence for corruption, becoming the country's first government
minister convicted while in office.
(Reuters, 7/12/13)

2013 Jul 17, A Romanian museum
official said that ash from the oven of a woman whose son is charged
with stealing 7 multi-million-dollar paintings from Rotterdam’s
Kunsthal Musum (Nov 16, 2012) contains paint, canvas and nails. Olga
Dogaru has claimed to have burned the stolen paintings last February
after police began searching the village of Caracliu, where she
lived. On July 22 Olga Dogaru told a Bucharest court that she did
not burn the paintings in her stove.
(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A2)(AP, 7/22/13)

2013 Aug 6, Latvia's government
approved the extradition of Deniss Calovskis (b.1985), a man
accused by the United States of helping create a virus that affected
over a million computers worldwide, including many at NASA, and that
allowed hackers to steal millions of dollars from victims' bank
accounts. US authorities earlier this year accused Calovskis, along
with Romanian citizen Mihai Ionut Paunescu and Russian national
Nikita Kuzmin, of participating in a conspiracy that started in 2005
to create and disseminate the so-called Gozi virus.
(AP, 8/6/13)

2013 Aug 13, In Romania a trial
opened on artwork stolen last october in the Netherlands. Lawyers
for the defendents said the paintings have not been burned and that
the gang responsible would like to cut a deal so the artwork can be
returned.
(SFC, 8/14/13, p.A2)

2013 Sep 1, In Romania
thousands of people took to the streets to protest against shale gas
exploration and a controversial Canadian gold mine project using
cyanide.
(AFP, 9/1/13)

2013 Sep 3, Romania launched a
criminal inquiry against Alexandru Visinescu (88), a communist jail
commander from the 1960s, who is accused of crimes against humanity.
(Reuters, 9/3/13)

2013 Sep 10, Romanian lawmakers
voted overwhelmingly for a law allowing stray dogs to be put down
after a four-year-old boy was mauled to death by a pack of strays
last week.
(AFP, 9/10/13)

2013 Sep 11, In eastern Romania
some 700 houses were flooded after 12 villages were hit by a
six-hour downfall. 8 people died and hundreds were evacuated as
torrential rains caused flash flooding.
(AP, 9/12/13)

2013 Sep 15, Romanian gold
miners, who staged a five-day protest underground against plans to
halt development of the site, ended their sit-in after PM Victor
Ponta went into the pit to meet them. Ponta promised them a
parliamentary commission to assess the proposed mine (before a vote
in parliament.
(Reuters, 9/15/13)

2013 Sep 21, Thousands of
Romanians formed a human chain around parliament to protest against
a Canadian company's plan to open Europe's largest gold mine in a
picturesque Transylvanian village.
(AFP, 9/21/13)

2013 Oct 13, In Romania
thousands marched across the country to protest against a Canadian
company's plans to open a gold mine seen as a threat to the
environment, and called for the government's resignation.
(AFP, 10/13/13)

2013 Oct 19, Thousands of
Romanians protested against plans by US energy group Chevron to
explore for shale gas in a poor eastern region and a Canadian
company's project to set up Europe's biggest open cast gold mine in
a Carpathian town.
(Reuters, 10/19/13)

2013 Oct 27, In Romania
thousands of ethnic Hungarians held rallies in 14 communities of
Transylvania to demand autonomy in the areas where they live.
(AP, 10/27/13)

2013 Nov 11, A Romanian
parliamentary commission rejected a bill that would have premitted
Europe’s largest gold mine to be developed in Rosai Montana by
Canada’s Gabriel Resources.
(SFC, 11/12/13, p.A2)

2013 Nov 12, A company owned by
Canada's Gabriel Resources said it still hopes to start digging for
gold in Romania in 2014, despite a negative vote by a parliamentary
committee.
(AFP, 11/12/13)

2013 Nov, Chinese officials
signed two agreements to import 500,000 cattle and three million
pigs from Romania over the next few years.
(AP, 11/31/13)

2013 Dec 5, Moldova’s
Constitutional Court ruled that Romanian is now the official
language. The language, basically the same as Romanian, had been
renamed Moldovan under Soviet rule.
(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A2)

2013 Dec 8, Chevron said it has
resumed activities to build its first shale gas exploration well in
Romania, a day after protests forced the US energy giant to suspend
work.
(AFP, 12/9/13)

2013 Dec 18, Romanian media
reported that some 26 police officers and ambulance employees have
been charged with calling undertakers to tell them that someone had
died, or in some cases were not yet dead, in exchange for money.
(AP, 12/18/13)

2014 Jan 1, The European
Commission said Romanians and Bulgarians now have the right to work
in any of the European Union's 28 countries but "no major increase"
in emigration is expected.
(AFP, 1/1/14)

2014 Jan 6, Former Romanian
prime minister Adrian Nastase was sentenced to four years in jail
for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to appoint a
businesswoman to a senior government post. He was released from
prison in 2013 after serving a third of a previous corruption
sentence.
(AFP, 1/6/14)(SFC, 1/7/14, p.A2)

2014 Jan 10, Romanian education
authorities fired a teacher Dana Blandu, who was filmed aggressively
demanding money as gifts from students in a case that has made local
headlines. It is customary in Romania to give presents to teachers.
(AP, 1/10/14)

2014 Jan 17, In Romania a
British diplomat (46) plummeted from the highest floor of a hotel in
the northern city of Baia Mare after leaving a farewell note.
(AFP, 1/17/14)

2014 Jan 20, In Romania a small
British plane crashed on a mountain. All seven aboard initially
survived but two people died while waiting for medical assistance.
Hypothermia was among the causes of death.
(AP, 1/22/14)

2014 Jan 30, Romania’s National
Center of Cinematography viewed Danish director Lars von Trier's
movie "Nymphomaniac II" for a second time and decided to lift the
ban it had imposed the day before.
(AP, 1/31/14)

2014 Feb 5, A Romanian court
charged and arrested Rudel Obreja, a former chairman of Romania's
Boxing Federation (2004-2012), with influence peddling for allegedly
offering to try to influence a sentencing hearing in return for
money.
(AP, 2/5/14)

2014 Feb 25, The Norwegian
defense group Kongsberg says it has been charged with corruption
relating to its activities in Romania. The charges were linked to
deliveries of communication equipment to Romania from 1999 to 2008.
(AP, 2/25/14)

2014 Feb 26, Ministers from
Romania's Liberals resigned from the government, a day after the
party quit the ruling coalition in a break-up that will trigger a
confidence vote and has changed the dynamics of a presidential
election in November.
(Reuters, 2/26/14)

2014 Mar 3, Romania's ethnic
Hungarian opposition party UDMR voted to join the leftist government
of PM Victor Ponta, and will be given the environment and culture
ministry portfolios.
(Reuters, 3/3/14)

2014 Mar 4, A Bucharest court
has handed prison sentences to eight Romanian football officials for
tax evasion and money laundering in connection with the transfer of
12 players.
(AP, 3/4/14)

2014 Mar 11, Romania's lower
house of parliament overwhelmingly voted to block an investigation
by state prosecutors of former Finance Minister Daniel Chitoiu who
they suspect abused his power to further the interests of a private
insurance company. Romania ranks only behind Greece and Bulgaria in
terms of corruption in the 28-nation EU, according to Transparency
International.
(Reuters, 3/11/14)

2014 Mar 30, In southeastern
Afghanistan a Romanian serviceman was killed and five troops wounded
by a roadside bomb on the Kabul-Kandahar highway outside Qalat,
Zabul province. Romania has 1,029 troops serving in the NATO mission
in Afghanistan; 23 have been killed.
(AP, 3/30/14)

2014 Apr 9, Radu Mazare, the
mayor of Romania's Black Sea port city of Constanta, was charged
with taking a bribe of 175,000 euros ($241,400) in 2011 in return
for awarding a company the tender to build 900 low-cost apartments
for socially deprived residents. Businessman Avraham Morgenstern was
also charged in the 10 million euro project.
(AP, 4/10/14)

2014 Apr 14, Romanian poet and
translator Nina Cassian (89) died in NYC. She had obtained political
asylum in the US after the Communist-era secret police found her
critical poems scribbled in a friend's diary.
(AP, 4/16/14)(Econ, 5/17/14, p.86)

2014 Apr 21, Romanian
authorities said 3 people have died and 250 were evacuated after
heavy rain and flooding hit over the weekend. Worst affected were
three southern counties that lie along the River Vedea.
(AP, 4/21/14)

2014 Apr 29, Moldova's PM Iurie
Leanca said neighboring Romania will export gas to his country this
year, reducing the former Soviet republic's dependence on Russia for
gas.
(AP, 4/29/14)

2014 May 15, A woman and a
firefighter drowned in Serbia and hundreds of people in the Balkans
were evacuated from their homes as rain-swollen rivers flooded
roads, bridges and railways, closed schools and cut off power and
phone service in Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Romania.
(AP, 5/15/14)

2014 Jun 6, Romania's
second-richest businessman, Dan Adamescu, was arrested on charges
that he bribed judges to rule in his favor in court cases over
several insolvency cases involving his companies in Dec 2013.
(AP, 6/6/14)

2014 Jun 25, Romania's
Parliament called on President Traian Basescu to resign, saying
suspicions that his brother took a bribe from the family of a
well-known convict have damaged the prestige of his office.
Basescu’s brother was arrested last week on charges that he took a
250,000 euros ($340,000) bribe from the son of convict imprisoned
for attempted murder to get his sentence reduced.
(AP, 6/25/14)

2014 Jul 29, Flooding in
eastern Europe left at least 3 people dead in Bulgaria and
Romania.
(SFC, 7/30/14, p.A2)

2014 Aug 27, Moldova and
Romania inaugurated a new pipeline that will pump gas from Romania
to Moldova in an attempt to reduce the former Soviet republic's
dependence on Russian energy. However, 43-km (28-mile) pipeline will
provide only five percent of its gas needs.
(AP, 8/27/14)

2014 Sep 16, Romania's energy
minister said Russia was playing games with gas supplies to cause
concerns in EU states, after analysts warned that Moscow could use
the flows to retaliate against sanctions imposed over its role in
Ukraine.
(Reuters, 9/16/14)

2014 Oct 7, In Romania
thousands of workers and health workers protested against low
salaries and endemic underfunding of the health system which have
led to thousands of doctors and nurses seeking work abroad.
(AP, 10/7/14)

2014 Oct 10, The US Navy took
control of a new missile defense base in southern Romania, one of
two European land-based interceptor sites for a NATO missile shield
that Russia strongly opposes.
(AP, 10/10/14)

2014 Nov 2, Romanians voted to
elect a new leader as President Traian Basescu steps down after 10
years. PM Victor Ponta won the first round of the presidential
election with 40.3%. Klaus Iohannis, an ethnic German mayor backed
by two center-right parties took 30.4%. A run-off vote will
take place on Nov 16.
(AP, 11/2/14)(Reuters, 11/3/14)

2014 Nov 8, In Romania some
10,000 people protested, accusing the government of limiting voting
from citizens living abroad in last weekend's presidential polls.
(AFP, 11/8/14)

2014 Nov 16, Romanians voted to
choose their next president, with current PM Victor Ponta (42) the
overwhelming favorite to win. Klaus Iohannis won a surprise victory
against the leftist PM Victor Ponta.
(AFP, 11/16/14)(Reuters, 12/21/14)

2014 Nov 21, In central Romania
a helicopter on a training mission crashed, killing 8 military
personnel and injuring two others.
(AP, 11/21/14)

2014 Dec 15, In Romania a
helicopter carrying a medical team crashed in Lake Siutghiol, near
the Black Sea, killing all 4 people onboard.
(AP, 12/16/14)

2014 Dec 16, Romania's PM
Victor Ponta gave up the title of "doctor," more than two years
after he was accused of plagiarism in writing his doctoral thesis.
(AP, 12/16/14)

2014 Dec 21, In Romania center
politician Klaus Iohannis (55) was sworn in as president. He
promised to crack down on corruption and strengthen institutions.
(Reuters, 12/21/14)(SFC, 12/22/14, p.A2)

2015 Jan 19, Romanian inventor
Justin Capra (81) died. He claimed to have beaten the Americans to
make the world's first jetpack and went on to design and build
dozens of vehicles, calling the modern-day car a disgrace.
(AP, 1/20/15)

2015 Jan 22, Romanian
prosecutors arrested Cristian David, a senator and former minister,
on suspicion of taking a bribe of 500,000 euros ($580,000) in a 2008
land ownership case. In a separate case Constitutional Court judge
Toni Grebla was indicted on suspicion of trying to violate Russia's
embargo on the EU by exporting food there via Turkey.
(AP, 1/22/15)

2015 Jan 27, Romania’s High
Court of Cassation and Justice handed Former Economy Minister Codrut
Seres a sentence of four years and eight months for treason and
transmitting state secrets; and Zsolt Nagy, former communications
minister, a four-year sentence for being part of a criminal group.
(AP, 1/27/15)
2015 Jan 27, Romania’s chief of
Intelligence Service, George Maior, resigned after criticizing the
country's top court for rejecting security laws which allowed the
government to collect data on people without court approval.
(AP, 1/27/15)

2015 Jan 30, NATO said it will
deploy small units in six Eastern European nations to help
coordinate a spearhead force set up in response to Russia's actions
in Ukraine. The units in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Bulgaria and Romania will be the first of their kind there.
(AP, 1/30/15)